Fox Hunt
by SilverInches
Summary: All his life Hiko had searched for solitude, what will he do when it is taken away by one terrified boy with a pack of hounds at his heels.


_Disclaimer:_ Once again, as if you can't say it with me, I do not own Rurouni Kenshin, actually I don't own anything to do with this anime... accept a burned and unofficial copy of the manga. And I have only watched about 6 episodes of the anime. That aside. I also have not profited in the making of this story in any way, accept for amusement, and possibly if someone else likes it, then reviews...

_A.N. : _ I was working on the next chapter of Orphan City when there was this... okay, lets be honest. I was sitting in church trying to pay attention with too much sugar in my system when this story hit me like the anvil hits Daffy Duck. So I scribbled away at it, hoping that I wouldn't forget it like I do so many other stories, and now that I'm sitting at work, this is when I have the urge to work on it... between intermittent bursts of doing Cadd. Hopefully it actually turns out to be okay. It's AU, which is rather typical of me.

**In Full Cry.**

_By: SilverInches._

Hiko Soujirou was a hermit. He would never describe it that way, of course. He would be more likely to term it "finding solitude of the sake of artistic inspiration", or something similar, but no matter how it is termed, when you spend so much time in your own company, it really all comes back to that one word. Hermit.

If you could find his home village and his family, they would tell you he had always been like that. Preferring his own thoughts to the chatter of others. Perhaps it was due to his extreme intelligence, or his overachieving drive for perfection that bordered on the obsessive, but whatever the cause, Master Hiko Soujirou had little to no time for the rest of his species.

Again if you could find his birth place you would learn that his father had been a potter of excellent repute. A man to whom family was everything, and a man who, for the sake of his family had given up crafting art and settled into making cooking pots and other crockery. Perhaps it was his own wasted genius that drove the man to demand such standards of excellence from his eldest son, or perhaps it was just the desperate need to have another set of competent hands producing marketable pots to support an large and still growing brood. When considering Hiko's nature, it is very plausible to think that it could have been the over population of the cottage that he grew up in that drove the young genius out into the forests that surrounded this distant village, and caused him to first stumble upon the secluded hut that an old man lived in.

This old man soon realized that if this brilliant youngster was not given something to keep his hands and mind busy, he would most likely do it himself and that, I am sure you realize, did not bode well for the rest of the world. Thankfully for the sake of our story, this old one was a master swordsman who had moved to the secluded glen to live out the rest of his life, and had nothing on his hands but time, Besides which, seeing all this potential going to waste was against his nature! So he trained the boy.

If you were to find this village, you might be able to find out that Hiko Soujirou excelled in both of the disciplines which he set his hand to. In pottery he became a craft master, producing some of the most sought after and appealing art pieces made of clay, and in sword craft he was unparalleled, even when put up against all the fighters in his old teacher's memories. However if you were to press the point and ask what became of him when he grew to maturity, or where he lives now, you would only receive shaken heads and dower looks. For Hiko Soujirou packed all of his belongings in a shoulder bag early one morning before the sun had risen, and walked out of that village without looking back, leaving behind an unsurprised father and the grave of the old soldier.

As was mentioned early on in this report, Master Hiko Soujirou was a hermit. Please keep this in mind when I say that he shouldered his pack and departed for the wide world. Unlike you or I, this man did not depart his village with the intention of seeking riches, or adventure, though he would not be disappointed if either came his way. No on the contrary, he was rather looking for solitude. The perfect place to live out his life. Perhaps he caught this yearning from his old sword master, but whatever the cause was finding of a place suited to his need to be alone was not easy to find.

First, he needed to support himself monetarily. Which with his skill was not a problem at all, but for his creations to reach suitable markets, he must be near a trade route. He had no problems procuring a map with all the major trade routes on it, as well as most settlements near them. However people were distressingly thick along each and every well traveled path. To escape this, he found himself wandering farther and farther beyond the edges of the map he had purchased. So much so that he was forced to buy a second map, one that charted out the new area he was in.

The second need Hiko had, was to find a place, that while near enough to the trade routes would also allow him to have minimal day to day, or better yet, month to month contact with people. He found them rather noisy, and empty headed for the most part, and he wished to avoid the necessity of making polite conversation as much as possible. For this reason he traveled beyond the edge of his second map and first heard of Whiel'ca'donim.

A mighty forest indeed he was to discover. The fringes of Whiel'ca'donim ran parallel to the Ferlu High Road, one of the farthest reaching and well known trade routes in the whole land. The young man was farther pleased to find only two villages nestled under the hanging boughs of the great trees, even though he walked for over two weeks along the Road. His enchantment with the place grew when he saw a mountain rising some distance behind the second village he came upon.

It didn't take him more than a week to find the ideal place to live, a fact which I sure was in no small way due to the potter's weariness of traveling. It may have taken him years to find this place, but with all the contacts he had made as he journeyed he would never need to worry if merchants would wish to purchase his work, or if there would be someone interested in buying what he made. They would follow him just to get the chance of selling one of his magnificant creations. Yes, life was good.

The first summer and winter were survived on the savings he had from his traveling days, as he was too busy building his new home into a solid and winterproof structure to craft crockery. As he intended to do most of his pottery work during the winter and inclement weather, he situated his potter's wheel in a carefully fireproofed room off the left of the main house. He also built a sleeping chamber to the right of the main room, for balance, as well as to give him another area to pace should he feel overly confined during the long winter months. The pantry and cellar were combined as the cottage merged with a cliff face for extra protection, and the cellar and pantry being hewn into the living rock.

The cottage itself, as has already been mentioned was situated at the bottom of a cliff (that only a swordsman as proficient as he could climb), and in the middle of a pretty little clearing with a stream running practically just past his front door. He was a cautious man, so he did not build too close to the stream, and certainly not within its flood plains. The soil, he learned during his second summer there as he planted a rather large garden, was as fertile as you could wish.

Now, as I have mentioned, Hiko Soujirou was a very intelligent man. It did not take more than one rich harvest and the following undisturbed winter to begin wondering why no one came to this rich land. Why was it all but uninhabited?

The spring rains came early that year, and he was able to take his merchandise down to the village early. Just as he was able to be out and about early, so the caravans arrived early as well, so he had a good morning of bargaining, which would place anyone in a good mood, but what is more, he asked questions of several different traders that he sold his wears to, as they seemed to be discerning enough to please him and more so than the average human. The questions that had been burning at him for most of the winter were carefully meted out over cups of tea and chiming coins.

Why did so few come here? Why did no one come up to his mountain? Why was the whole forest so sparsely populated? Some of the answers were simple, no one wanted to the arduous trek up steep and treacherous trails for a few hides or a bit of soil when more of it could be found easily on the flat lands.

Slowly, over the course of the day a story wove itself into view around his solitary mountain. To the traders who spoke with Hiko it was all rubbish. Stories to frighten children with, and being the modern man he was, Hiko was inclined very strongly to agree with them. Tales were told to him of four nations that lived under the great boughs of the trees, people that lived, loved and died as anyone else would, but were never seen by any passing along the forests verge. Stories of the bitter rivalries that had taken root between two of the four peoples, causing fear and superstition to rise and plunge the forest into a perpetual state of danger, and despair. Hiko found himself much reassured by these legends. He assuredly knew the power such tales had over those with weaker minds, those that were more susceptible to superstition.

So it was with a pack full of goods, a pocket full of coin and a mind made easy, the master swordsman hiked back up the trail to his cottage in the deepening gloom of the forest, very content indeed with his life.

So the years passed and new legends sprang up about the unchanging hermit who lived in the mountain. To some, he was their good luck charm, to others the oddity that made their part of the world different, just a little bit special. To Hiko Soujirou, they were good years, quiet, but with some passing friendships. Also, supplies less than half a day away, no pesky people bothering him when he was working, and a massive uncharted forest just outside his door. What more could any man ask for?

It was late autumn, a crisp day, when Hiko tramped back into his clearing just as the sun was setting. He was in a fine mood, with thoughts of a roaring fire and some rather nice wine he had stowed away in his cellar for just such an occasion adding a tinge of anticipation to his steps.

Perhaps Master Hiko requires a bit of description now, as this information has been a bit lacking so far. He was a large man, and though he was by now reaching an age when many tend toward softness in the middle, he showed no inclination to do so. His largeness was not at all due to access of food, but more in the muscles of a hard worker, dedicated fighter, seasoned traveler added to by the height which fortune had chosen to gift him with quite liberally. He kept his black hair nobly long and tied back at his neck. Though he was not of high birth, he must have felt himself equal to any man, and such pride is not misplaced in such a gentleman as this, and his dark eyes showed only confidence. Had he wished it he could easily have risen to a high position in any society he resided in, however, due to his solitary bent, only the creatures of the forest and the few villagers he saw a few times a year were gifted with the sight of this excellent specimen.

Having reached his clearing, Hiko proceeded to check on his few animals, and his garden, which although it had been harvested still needed to be winterized. As the next day boded to be as fine as that day had been he made a mental note to spend it in the garden, thus finishing his work in it until next spring. The final rounds were made to his satisfaction as the sun slid down behind his mountain, and he slipped into the house gladly to escape the noticeably cooling air.

Supper was done with and he was sitting before the fire with his wine, when in the distance beyond the sounds of night he was used to, he heard a deep throated bay. He was rather puzzled by this, as in the over ten years he had lived in the area, never before had he ever heard a dog bark, let along one that was so obviously expensive as a well bred coursing hound. His first thought was to hope that no high handed nobleman had decided to take the forest as his play ground, but he dismissed the thought out of hand, Whiel'ca'donim was too far from any organized government for that explanation to hold any weight at all. He strained his ears to hear better, but even with his hypersensitive hearing, the night had returned to the normal rustling of the little creatures and the larger ones that hunted them.

On his trek that day Hiko had discovered several new herbs and a couple of animal tracks. He was keeping careful record of different plants and animals that lived within the forest, and was compiling a book full of tracings and the information about each species. He made sure to keep dried examples of the ones that he didn't know so he could ask when he went to town then next time. Once they had realized what he was doing, several others in the village, the midwife, and some hunters had inquired what he had so far and then kept an eye out to procure more for him. He was glad of this, he lived alone and far from any aid, so knowing how to use what was in the forest to care for himself was imperative.

He heard the hound again just as he was packing his drawing tools away for the night. It was closer this time, and sounding slightly frustrated, but eager to continue the chase. The bay was answered by several more wails and yips, leading him to realize that there was not just one hound, but several, possibly a full pack. Whatever confusion the first dog ran into was obviously sorted out easily for in only a matter of seconds the whole pack was in full cry, and the whole woods seemed to ring with their chorus. It was then that Hiko realized the pack was much closer than he had realized and they could conceivably be within a league of his cottage. He felt momentarily glad for the sturdiness of his house's walls, and then sorry for the poor creature that they were hunting. If they had been at it since he had heard them just after dinner, well, then it had been a long hunt indeed. Their prey must be very crafty to escape so long, but it would be exhausted by this time, as the sword master reckoned it was nearing or just passed the mid of night, and the pack must be closing in if its wildly undulating cry was any indication.

The man had finished cleaning up the main room and was heading to his bed chamber to get what sleep he could with the racket going on outside when something hit his door with a dull thud. His heart leaped, and he crossed the room swiftly to gather up his sword, then he went still listening carefully to see what was on the other side of the portal.

Harsh gasps reached his ears, and low panting he could hardly hear so loud and frenzied had the baying grown, but just barely he heard the sobbed words, "Please, oh please." A weak thump followed this, like a hand trying to knock, but unable to summon the energy. "Please. Help."

Nothing in his life had prepared him for this moment, for the realization that the hounds were not hunting an animal but a human, a person who was leaning against the outside of his door begging for his help. There need be no doubt in anyone's mind that Hiko Soujirou was a good man, even a great man, and the thought never even entered his mind that he might be endangering himself to open that door. He crossed the room in one wild lunge, the heavy bar that lay across it was lifted and the portal thrown open. Equally swift was the hand that caught the bedraggled figure's collar to drag him in over the threshold and drop him onto the oak floor within.

The potter was just pushing the door shut again when in the pale light of the full moon he saw several figures enter the clearing. The baying had stopped when he opened the door, and he could see as black shadows those that he assumed must be the hounds' masters.

"Give us our fox," they called tauntingly, completely assured that he would do as he was told. "Give us our fox, and we'll let you keep living here in peace."

"I do not now, nor have I ever lived here on your sufferance." The cottage's owner returned, confident in himself and his abilities.

"Just give us our fox, and we'll leave the hermit to his solitude." The voice came from farther on the left, and it held a more mocking tone.

A distressed whimper came from the gasping fugitive on his floor, causing Hiko's jaw to clench in anger. No one deserved this, no matter what they had done. He raised his head proudly to the hunters, "Leave now, before I find myself without patience for your foolishness, and remove you from this clearing." There was no bravado in his tone, he needed none, he knew his capabilities.

Those under the moonlight drew back under the verge of the trees. They must have been able to tell that he was not bluffing, or they felt they could bide their time.

Hiko swung the door shut on the silver and shadowed world outside. When the door was only open a sliver, he happened to glance back out at the figures and froze, then quickly finished closing the door and barring it. He rubbed at his jaw ruefully, realizing he must have been more tired than he originally thought, because in that one moment he had thought that instead of men there had been great hounds bounding into the darkness under the trees.

Turning from the barred door, the man was able to take a good look at what he had dropped on his floor. The poor creature made a rather pathetic showing, but it was to be expected, it what the swordsman believed was true and the hunt had been on since just after dinner time. For all the man knew it could have started before that.

He crouched down next to the shaking figure and looked him over. He would have been unsure about the boy's gender except that his tunic had been torn half off of him at some point and there were no feminine curves to be seen. His hair was long, reaching almost to the small of his back, or it would have if it had not been so tangled with twigs and leaves, clinging in wet tangles to his neck and back, smearing what mud was on him around so it was impossible to tell if it had originated on the body and migrated to the air or the other way around. The man supposed the hair would be brown but it really was too dirty to tell. The boy was scrawny, even if he had been in comparison to the villagers rather than the tremendous Hiko. The wiry muscle on his thin frame spasmed even as the potter watched, the boy's fingers trying to dig into the floor as he heaved, attempting to get more air into his lungs and from thence to his exhausted body.

The man realized the boy needed to be tended to before he would be able to provide any acceptable answers, after all, sweat was not the only liquid that he was drenched in. Blood was also much in evidence, obviously this little fox had been caught at least once during the grueling hunt. So, Hiko calmly fetched what herbs he had, towels, and water in a basin and set to work. The boy tried to crawl away from him at first, but besides being worn out, he was a great deal smaller than his nurse and all the man had to do was so place a hand on him to hold him down.

Stripping him carefully so he was only in his loincloth, the man rinsed his back as clean as he could, and then rolled him as gently as possible onto a towel, getting him off the hard floor. Huge violet eyes stared up at him from a elfin face complete with pointed chin and high cheekbones, wet bangs clung to his forehead, and while his chest still heaved, his breathing seemed to be easing slowly.

"Please." Hiko saw his mouth move, his eyes pleading, "Please."

"There will be no hunts while you are under my roof." The man said sternly, still angered, but this seemed to soothe the boy, because the wild terror that contorted his face was easing, and while he was still very wary and easily startled, he seemed to trust that he was safe for the time being.

Time slid by quietly as Hiko first cleaned, then salved and finally bandaged the youth's wounds. While he worked, he could see the muscles slowly stop spasming, the breathing return to normal and the eyes begin to droop in exhaustion. Intermittently the man would slowly trickle water into the overheated mouth, afraid of giving him too much too soon. Deciding that he would make sure the child had a bath the next day, Hiko made a pallet on the floor in front of the fire for the boy to sleep, and making sure he was sleeping, wearily making a second sleeping pallet before the house's only door, and taking time for one last trip to ensure all the windows were shuttered as well, the swordsman fell into bed, and did not wake until the sun had almost reached its zenith.

The smell of tea and toast greeted his nostrils as he hauled himself upright. While he was normally a morning person, the day before had been very long, and in a rather unusual event his brain took several moments to remember why there was another person in his cottage and why he was sleeping on the floor. That did not last long however, and he was soon sitting at his table munching on toast that the boy had darkened over the fire, and sipping tea that was steeped for quite a bit longer than was usual for the man.

The man watched his little rescue carefully over the rim of his mug. The boy was being helpful. Anything Hiko moved to do, the lad scurried to do if for him. Being a genius, and used to not having to put up with other people very often had made him somewhat short tempered with what he comsidered to be stupidity in others. So it was when the boy tried to help him one to many times, that the man picked him up by his collar and removed him from task that the swordsman had been attempting to accomplish. It took him several moments to realize that not only was the boy out of the way, he was also no where in the vicinity. Gathering his patience about him as if it were a mantle, he turns slowly about servaying the room until his eyes fell on the sight on the boy huddled in the farthest corner of the room, trying to cover his head with his arms.

All anger left him in a moment, and the man say down quietly at the table again. "I am," He began calmly, trying to find the right words, "unused to having others in my home. I have had no one visit this clearing in the entire time that I have lived in this region. I enjoy my solitude." The boy wilted farther with every word he said, obviously expecting to be thrown from the cottage at any moment, and into the waiting jaws of the hounds and their owners. "As I am unused someone being around when I am trying to work, I would request that you not get in my way."

The boy looked up at him, and then nodded vigorously.

"I was planning to work in my garden today, if it looks nice out, I intend to follow that plan. However, while I am working there, you need to get cleaned up. I have a strong sense of cleanliness, and I would prefer not to have you sleeping in my house again if you are as filthy as you are now."

Again the boy nodded, eager to please.

"Do you have a name?" Hiko was privately horrified when the child looked uncertain and then shook his head no. "I know you can talk. I heard you last night. I would prefer if you would do so." Seeing if the boy would protest the man shrugged when he did not and continued, "Let us start with something simple. Have you eaten anything?"

"No, sir."

"Come here, sit, have some of this nice blackened bread." The boy flushed but did as he was told. Once he'd gotten one slice and half a mug of sweetened tea into him, Hiko continued with his careful questioning. "How old are you?"

He boy frowned slightly, and the potter could see his fingers tapping on the side of the mug in his hand. "I'm seventeen, sir." He said slowly.

Hiko nodded. "You said you do not have a name?"

"Fox." The boy spat, the disgust in his eyes almost covering the shiver of fear that raced down his spine, added after a slight pause, "Sir."

"I will call you Kenshin." The potter decided aloud, startling them both with the sudden pronouncement. "It comes from a language one of my acquaintance has knowledge of, I remember the word means something about a strong heart, or a heart of metal."

The newly named Kenshin looked like he had been handed the world on a platter.

"Now for that bath." Hiko grunted, getting up from the table. Maybe the kid would be alright after all, even if he had invaded his perfect spot.

_The End. For now.  
_

_A.N.:_ I will say right now that I wrote this simply because it was pounding at my brain. It may or may not be continued, but it all depends on how Orphan City progresses. I don't want to have 2 stories on the go at once... though if this one turns out to be liked, then I will probably continue it, after Orphan City. Which should be done within 3 chapters... if all goes according to plan... though for me, plans usually get burned in transition. -Kasi.


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